More tourist contracts?

[yorshee]

I had an interesting idea today - I thought it would be cool if there were more contracts when it comes to tourists. For example, if you have a space station in orbit around a specific planet, a tourist could want to go on vacation there for a certain period of time, and you would have to return them home after a certain time - if you leave them there for too long (or take them home too early), you don't fulfil all the contract's parameters. These vacations could vary from a couple of weeks to a few years. It would give more of a purpose to the empty space stations that you're assigned to create and deploy, and I don't think there are any contracts in KSP that require you to manage your time like this (other than the contract deadlines, of course).

[Grumman]

Years would be too long, I think, as it would be tying up one of your precious few Contract slots for the duration, but apart from that it's a good idea.

Rather than specifying one particular existing space station, I'd define the requirements for the station and then count any time spent on a qualifying station against the contract's timer whenever you give the station focus. That way you don't have to worry about the contract seeing, say, a shuttlecraft on its way to Minmus and deciding you have to keep it in Kerbal's SoI for the next month - you can just put a new station into orbit that meets the same requirements.

[tater]

Squad needs to alter the "Administration" building to provide sliders for actual strategies, instead of what they call strategies. Sliders would determine the relative abundance of each type offered.

Three actual strategies for what your program could concentrate on come to mind:

Commercial Services (sat/station/base launches, and maintenance contracts (player would not control them once contract satisfied)).

Tourism (as we have now, plus ideas like OP's "Deliver 4 tourists to a space station around Kerbin, and return them to Kerbin after X orbits.")

Space Exploration (your own KSC) (these would be many pure science "contracts" we have now, stripped of the 3d party request (Kerbodyne won't want you to plant a flag, your program wants to do that).

Edited July 13, 2015 by tater

[Kegereneku]

I'm not against the concept but for now I simply can't stand being asked to carry stupid tourist everywhere I just went, as if I was a Tour Operator in the game "Kerbal Space Tourism".

Similar yet Different than Tater above, career mods simply need a complete rebalance. You don't need to change fundamentally Administration & Contract but they need to have a point other than random challenge.

[tater]

Keg, my idea regarding the "strategies" is basically like the filter you've asked for (in case that isn't clear). It would just be a weighted filter, so if you set your program to 60% science, 20% commercial, 20% tourism, that would be the balance of contracts you'd be presented with (I'd set tourism to zero, frankly).

Yeah, the whole thing needs changing, but I'm trying to think "inside the box," such that they can use tools that already exist, since I doubt they will ever gut the whole thing.

[Enceos]

I had an interesting idea today - I thought it would be cool if there were more contracts when it comes to tourists. For example, if you have a space station in orbit around a specific planet, a tourist could want to go on vacation there for a certain period of time, and you would have to return them home after a certain time - if you leave them there for too long (or take them home too early), you don't fulfil all the contract's parameters. These vacations could vary from a couple of weeks to a few years. It would give more of a purpose to the empty space stations that you're assigned to create and deploy, and I don't think there are any contracts in KSP that require you to manage your time like this (other than the contract deadlines, of course).

Yorshee, did you try out the Tourism Plus contract pack? It does everything you described and more.

[Tw1]

. For example, if you have a space station in orbit around a specific planet, a tourist could want to go on vacation there for a certain period of time, and you would have to return them home after a certain time - if you leave them there for too long (or take them home too early), you don't fulfil all the contract's parameters. These vacations could vary from a couple of weeks to a few years.

This is basically how I'd hoped tourism would've worked from the start. I imagine tourists would want a worth while stay (rather than just ticking off that they've been somewhere), and having a base or station set up as a destination proves you're able to accommodate them.

So yeah, this sort of tourism would be good.

Space Exploration (your own KSC) (these would be many pure science "contracts" we have now, stripped of the 3d party request (Kerbodyne won't want you to plant a flag, your program wants to do that).

I still say if it benifits your space program directly, there should be no need to select any contracts before you do it. It makes more sense to earn money from external sources than from yourself somehow. Other than that, the ability to influence what contracts you get would be a good strategy to include.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Tw1

[tater]

"From yourself" would be budget, really. But that's the way it should be (at least as a strategy). Be a "national" space program, and get budget based on Rep or something.

[Kegereneku]

Tater, it's been so long we discuss this we might forget what each other said, still I remember your ideas, I like some but mostly disagree with your overall logic.

Our main point of disagreement as I remember it (I won't mind if we don't restart the topic) would be the role of the "Administration building". I wouldn't mind that "Contract Filter" of yours but I consider it utterly insignificant (being dramatic here) compared to what refiltering contract-generation would achieve, cosmetic even, equivalent to (I wish) replacing all industry-logo and generated-text by Clean logo&text telling exactly what the mission is (rescue, survey, exploration, satellite...etc).

...however it replacing strategy would be a downgrade.

The Strategy of the Administration building we have now ARE in fact more Strategies than your suggestion. They have just been balanced out into oblivions in the process of making them failsafe, like how you can't possibly fail contracts or get stuck in R&D.

The system we have right now allow to consider each contracts as "projects" toward which you choose technological, funding & reputation means.

Like how "Manned presence on the surface of Mars" was a "project" toward which NASA and SpaceX choose strategy (which are not based on filtering what contract they get but the means to accomplish any of them)

To give an analogy, SpaceX isn't clawing its way by "doing Commercial Service" over "Exploration", all agency/company do both (illustrative link).

SpaceX is making itself relevant by its choice of investing in Reusable engine/stage rather than reducing the cost of purpose-built rocket (or say making spaceplane).

As for "budget", be it periodic or not, I never believed in market-driven Private-Venture, even SpaceX need backers and subvention and even a "National Space Program" need a job/reason for existence, amounting them to roughly the same thing. In result, to me "Budget" is more of a nondescript balance mechanism to keep a player able to rebound without making Contract impossible to fail (and obviously a lever to play on with reputation/funding).

So basically, as I keep saying :

- Contracts are not reliable enough, not to make them OP or failsafe.

- Administration strategies don't make meaningful difference.

- R&D is based on grinding rather than experience-based decision.

But otherwise, KSP don't need to change that much (though, balancing a game can be harder than coding the features as demonstrated by the Aero-change)

Ps : The above is quite a long answer to a topic that specific. So I don't mind if you don't wish to continue or correct me here.

Edited July 19, 2015 by Kegereneku

[tater]

Ps : The above is quite a long answer to a topic that specific. So I don't mind if you don't wish to continue or correct me here.

I made a new thread so as not to derail this one:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/129155-General-Contracts-and-Career-Discussion?p=2089368#post2089368